I have just finished laying the plaster wraps down on my n scale layout, the hills are in place and now comes my qyestion should i paint the whole layout one color of earth tone then start to do the actual scenerey or should I just work a section at a time and do the scenery colors as I go. My major problem is actually doing the scenery,
I guess this is one of those questions where the answer is ‘it depends.’ You can paint it but it always seemed like a waste of material to me.
For me, I don’t usually paint the raw plaster the earth color because I cover the plaster with a concoction called ‘ground goop’ which has the paint in it. The reason is that I build scenery using plaster cloth and just painting over it doesn’t really cover all the little holes in the cloth. I will also use colored Scultamold for the same reason.
Basically, I will always apply something over the plaster cloth to fill in the holes, provide some further defintion to the finished scenery and to provide a little more strength to the basic shell - and this application is where i apply the color.
That said, I guess it’s just a matter of personal preference.
My layout is mostly open-grid, with the track on cut-out plywood roadbed supported by risers. The scenery is Durabond-90 patching plaster over aluminum screen. Once the majority of the plaster was in place, I needed to wear welding goggles when entering the room, as the combination of fluorescent lighting and stark white plaster would have otherwise resulted in a bad case of snow blindness.
I bought a gallon of cheap flat interior latex paint in a dirt colour, and attempted to paint the terrain, but it was immediately apparent that this would require several gallons of paint and a great deal of brushing.
Instead, I took an empty half-gallon plastic container and filled it to about one quarter with the paint, then filled the remainder with tap water. After mixing, I used a cheap 3" brush to apply this “stain”. It went on much more easily than the unthinned paint, and yet still had enough pigment to stain those areas where the entire top of the grid was covered with plywood. It took little time to eradicate the entire “blizzard” effect.
Once ground cover is applied, it easily hides the underlying plaster, without using too much material, and where the stain shows through, it doesn’t look at all out of place:
I used the same “dirt” colour, unthinned, to paint the plaster “water” in the Maitland River, then covered it with three coats of high gloss water-based clear urethane.
Where the river deepens as its waters join with those of Lake Erie, I blended the brown into a dark grey-green colou
Assuming you aren’t intending to put an additional coal of paster over the first layer, I would prefer to give the plaster a base coat of flat latex wall paint in a earth tone. I find it easier to see the landforms if they are colored rather than white. Plus it makes the whole area appear more finished immediately. You can then come back and add whatever additional scenery material over the earth tone. in smaller descrete segments.
As talked about above, make sure your plaster cloth is all sealed one way or another. I used 2" foam, but after your cloth is sealed, I think I would proceed the same as I did. I painted a square foot or two (experiment a little) my basic earth color and sprinkled the first layer of ground foam onto the wet paint. It makes for one less layer of gluing foam on later. I used several different colors and textures right from the start.
Good luck,\
Richard
I tend to do small areas at a time. What I learn from each one helps me when I start on the next. I favour the approach of painting it all in various shades of brownish grey. You never know where bare patches might appear.
Wayne I love that disappearing road [Y]
Mike
Thanks for your kind words, Mike. That photo pretty-much gives away the whole ruse,[:-^] but it doesn’t look too bad from this angle…
Or even from the opposite direction, up on the hill, where the cows are in the previous photo…
Wayne